In a submission to the Government's latest round of welfare reforms, commissioner Marie Shroff says making beneficiaries take pre-employment drug tests could violate their privacy.

It could also leave beneficiaries in a "catch-22" situation, caught between an unlawful drug test and the threat of losing their benefit, she said.

This is not good news for Paula. She needs this law, not because it's shaped to help beneficiaries get jobs, the point of the law is to disqualify beneficiaries from welfare in the first place.

As the most widely used illegal drug, cannabis is perfect as the target drug to test for. The beauty of disqualification is that the beneficiaries become utterly invisible to statistics. This allows for what Paula did last week, and that is to trumpet a drop in beneficiary numbers without actually explaining where they have gone to.

What NZers need to appreciate is that drug testing beneficiaries has nothing to do with finding beneficiaries jobs, it is a means to disqualify them. With vast new third party involvement about to descend upon 'managing' beneficiaries, these private companies get a bonus each time they remove a beneficiary from the list, either by finding them a job or by disqualifying them. Drug testing is the easiest means of disqualification hence Paula's desperate push to gain these powers.

If this sort of thing were being aimed at nice white middle class NZers there would be an uproar, but in NZ I get the I get this creepy feeling that if Gareth Morgan had called for the culling of beneficiaries instead of cats that there would be less fuss.

We should drug test beneficiaries the same day we breath test Politicians for being drunk in Parliament.

I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't go to where I'm about to go . To where no man ( Or womin @ Fern ) should go . To Paula Bennett .

Paula Bennett is the most compelling argument I've ever seen for compulsory sterilization . She works on me like bromide AND I pride myself on shagging almost anything .

If I was ever with a beautiful , vibrant and vibrating young woman who's beauty was almost beyond imagining , who's sparkling sexual allure was as additive as a hybrid cocaine / P crossover and when all seemed lost and I was about to fall into a parallel Universe of lustful abandon , as one reluctantly does .... I'd think of paula bennett to bring me back .

Nothing would put me further away from my ' stride ' than a mental image of paula bennett in a wispy not-much . She has all the sexual allure of a plghem coated tarantula . Her unfit , x rated buttocks roll with the punches as she defies gravity just to wobble from our BMW 7 to her effortless meal ticket which is our tax payed dollar .

Once there , just like any cheap Mistress , she tortures and subjugates for her meal ticket . She feeds off the vulnerable and disadvantaged because as any thinker knows , it is they who pay the most to live in 740 Park Avenue Paradise Mate .

How that creature can slither into a position of power virtually unchallenged is well beyond this writers ability to explain .

All you gentle pot smokers , lovers of the day and chicken farmer types had better get up , gear up and get fit because a day of reckoning is upon you . You’re being stalked like a lame deer in the forest . She’s coming for you . She’s coming , she’s getting closer , and closer , and closer ! Drug testing bennies is against the Geneva Convention surely ! Is it not enough that one might be unemployed , unemployable , undesirable , inexcusable , unfathomable , untenable , impossible , improbable , unlovable , unlovely or just plain can’t be arsed ? What the fuck is wrong with that I ask ? Now , that dull ugly mistake is going to look into your private lives ? So what if youth is not in paid employment ? Payed employment sucks ! Ask anyone IN payed employment . It’s not the fault of youth not working that work is nought but a cunt of a thing that gets in the way of having fun in the summer . After all ! Look at what we’ve got ? We have washing machines that live longer than most turtles . We have amazing technologies that just go and go and go . Our new cars for example . If you put fresh oils into it , it’ll drive you anywhere for more than a million kilometers . I aint kidding ! Our fancy things that make our lives unbelievably easy are not only cheap as the shit you shit to produce like the shit you shit but they last for ages man ! TV’s , stereos , fuckin’ tools man . And stuff . It’s amazing ! Ah , so why is there such emphasis placed on ‘ working ‘ for the corporate master ... ? Is it because the corporate master says so ? So , then why is paula bennett getting all tough-cunt on people who don’t work , can’t work or who don’t see the point to it ? There ya go ! Work per se is an anomaly . We should all get ........... Bugger it . I can’t be arsed . I’m going to bed perchance to dream ....Oh paula ! Ooooooh Paula .

Final post....Taking into account the Utilitarian approach in ethical theory, (Rachels & Rachels, 2010, P. 137) this theory evaluates the consequences of the action and holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain and the privation of pleasure. Initially, for those directly affected, if they are presently a chronic user of addictive substances, testing and rehabilitation will not promote happiness in the initial stages of the rehabilitation as there would be a lifestyle change required which the individual may not necessarily welcome. However, in the long term, rehabilitating and becoming a productive member of society who is working, making money, and having self esteem would likely result in a happier / healthier functioning member of society. This would ultimately have a flow on effect in the community and hopefully for the families of those involved, if they are given the right support and the chance to make changes that will improve their life. This is what the introduction of the drug testing should be about, however it will be up the powers that be.There may also be an ethical situation to be answered regarding third party involvement in managing beneficiaries. As mentioned in the online articles, third parties receive a bonus for either finding beneficiaries a job or disqualifying them from their benefit. Drug testing will be another means of disqualifying people from benefits and attaining bonuses. Analysing this scenario using Kantian ethical theory, we use the categorical imperative and the application of universal law. The categorical imperative states that people should be treated “always as an end and never as a means” and the reference to universal law means “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law”. (Rachels & Rachels, 2010, p. 137). There is the potential in this situation to use beneficiaries as a means to an economic end by (perhaps) falsely cutting their benefits to receive bonuses which then lines the pockets of those receiving the bonuses, supposedly saving the tax payers money and lower the statistics of beneficiaries receiving money, all the while people that are genuinely in need may be going without. If this is actually what is happening – are we then happy for other government agencies to have the same sorts of bonus programmes in place? The universal answer to that would probably be no.

Part 2Des Jardins and Duska (DesJardins, 1987) states that drug testing is a means for obtaining information and the information sought must be relevant to the employer/employee contract in order for the drug testing not to violate privacy. If the drug testing is only going to be carried out on people applying for jobs where the prospective employers require it then this would not be a breach of their privacy.

People not on benefits who apply for the same job would also be drug tested therefore the beneficiaries are not being discriminated against. If anyone fails the test then they are unlikely to get the job. This may mean that the person not on the benefit has to stay in their lower paid job therefore they are suffering a consequence of their drug use. Why shouldn't beneficiaries also suffer a consequence?

If they continue to fail the drug tests then why should they continue to receive the full benefit? If an employee continually fails drug tests and counseling or rehab does not work then they are likely to lose their job. It is a consequence of taking illegal drugs.

As the overall aim is to get people into employment why should the Government (and the tax payers) continue to support people who refuse to apply for jobs that require drug testing or continually fail drug tests? Helping people to get off drugs and being able find employment can only be a good thing both for the Government and the beneficiaries.

Drug testing, whether it is for pre-employment checks or part of an employment contract continues to be a controversial topic. No doubt it will continue to be so but with everyone being open to both sides of the arguments maybe there can be a solution that is morally acceptable to the majority of people? I would certainly like to think so.